


Apollo and Artemis

by NellieSly



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Pre-Series, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3978811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieSly/pseuds/NellieSly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were just nicknames, not call signs for a long while yet, but when you’re the Commander’s kids, everyone knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apollo and Artemis

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've ever published, just as a heads up.

Lee had become Apollo before he was two years old--the golden boy, a natural-born fighter--all the more reason for Bill to beam when he found out his second child would be a girl. He knew she would be just as perfect; she was Artemis from the womb. (Carolanne just nodded along with this for those long months. When the time finally came, she wrote “Celia” on the birth certificate, in honor of her grandmother.)

  


They were deities through their childhoods, spinning imaginary worlds filled with prophecy, devastation, and heroics. (Were they imaginary, then? Or prophecies in themselves?) Petty attempts to tether them to reality began to fail. Games went on a bit too long, and teachers who called them to attention using their birth names were willfully ignored. Lee caved first, after a few disciplinary notes and a stern talking-to in his mother’s best approximation of the Commander Voice. The same punishment made Artemis even more determined to live up to her namesake, the fierce warrior maiden. She’d begged for archery lessons, and she received them. She knew that a wild and deadly thing was in the process of becoming within herself.

\------

When that becoming could be hidden no longer, “Celia” fell by the wayside easily enough, and “Zak” quietly cropped up in its place on all the legally binding documents. But the question of what would replace Artemis muffled every conversation.

“Art--”

A beat.

A shake of the head.

A conspicuous absence.

That is, until Starbuck patched it up, drunkenly.

“Sorry I punched you, Ar’emisss. I dint even mean it really. You’re frakking hot, you know that? You have good genes. Adama? More like **_hot damn_** -ma, amiright?” She cackled and looked around the now-emptied bar for someone to high five.

“Starbuck, I won’t high five you for that, even if you did just compliment my entire genetic line. I’m taking you to bed.”

“Oh, aaaaare you?”, she drawled in a sloppy facsimile of seduction.

“To your rack, not _to bed_ , lords. At least not in your state. Go the frak to sleep.”

\------

Long after Starbuck had been safely deposited, her words continued to circle through Zak’s head. Not the part where she insinuated her attraction to him (and what that implied about Apollo. . . even the Old Man. . . well, not _only_ that part, anyway.), but her whiskey-mouthed pronunciation of his old name.  
 _Ar’amiss._  
 ~~Are-a-miss?~~  
Are a mess?  
 _Amiss._  


It was bitter and self-deprecating, sure, but for now it was an accurate fit. Amiss. Something not quite right, continually becoming. He would prove his worth to all of them in time, not a maiden, still a warrior.


End file.
